


Between Friends

by starrysky



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrysky/pseuds/starrysky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two friends sharing a friendly first kiss together. Friendly, first kiss? Perhaps. Unless it was something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Thought of this while watching Christmas movies.  
> Sorry for any mistakes.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated.  
> Love you guys. :)

“How exactly did you get so good at Christmas decorating, anyway?”

Harry thinks, it’s funny how for all he’s grown recently, Louis still seems very much like the young teenager he has been best friends with since moving into the house a few doors down, all blue eyes and pink lips and flushed cheeks. Now, after just a year of knowing each other, Louis’ voice is even sweeter, his hair brown, long, and fringed, Harry’s favorite. Louis’ puberty has been effortless, but he’ll always be that that funny, beautiful boy with the same loving heart.

Louis shrugged. “Mum, I s’pose,” he said. “Christmas was a big deal at my house. She liked going all out with the decorations. She’d make new ones every year and have us help her.”

Caught off-guard, Harry couldn’t help but smile at the unexpected revelation, chuckling softly to himself when he spotted the tips of Louis’ ears slowly turning red.

“That sounds nice.”

Louis’ cheeks began to mimic his ears. He gave Harry a quick sideways glance, then cleared his throat.

“Come help me look for some more holly, yeah?”

Louis sank to his knees at one of the boxes and beginning to rummage through it. Every so often, he’d draw out a sprig of holly, but none of the ones he’d found seemed quite to his liking, because he’d wrinkle his nose and place them back in the box, then reach in once again to look for more. Harry knelt beside him and dug his hand in, drawing out something that looked rather nice--until he realized it wasn’t even holly at all.

It was mistletoe.

“Er... we should hang this up somewhere, too.”

Harry wasn’t really sure why he felt nervous all of a sudden. There was no reason for it, was there? He forgot all about his nervousness, though, when he looked up at Louis and caught the unmistakable twinkle of laughter in his eyes. They were best friends. That’s all.

“Right, I’ll go and hang that in the doorway, then,” Louis said, taking it from Harry before he could say anything else and getting to his feet. Louis seemed to be fighting a laugh but it was clear he was moments away from losing that particular battle.

“What?” Harry questions, eyebrows crinkled.

“What d’you mean, what?”

Harry arched an eyebrow. He knew Louis knew perfectly well what he meant.

“Do you want to let me in on the joke?” When Louis still didn’t answer, Harry gestured towards the mistletoe, which was now hanging just above the door. “What’s that smile for?”

Louis lapsed into a lop-sided grin. “Nothing, just... reminded me of something, that’s all.” 

“Oh?”

He knew he shouldn’t be so transparent, but Harry couldn’t help it; curiosity was getting the better of him at that moment. Louis seemed to be all too aware of it, too, because his grin was slowly widening.

“All right,” he said at last, looking out the door as if to check for any eavesdroppers, then walking towards the fireplace and motioning him to come closer. “Just don’t tell Liam I told you, ok, Har? I swore I wouldn’t breathe a word of it.”

Now Harry was getting curiouser and curiouser.

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Well, apparently the kiss with Zayn all started because of one of those things,” he said, pointing at the mistletoe. It seemed holding in his amusement all this time had become unbearable now, and he finally let out a rather undignified snort of a laugh. “Can you believe it? I mean, it’s the oldest trick in the book, isn’t it?” 

Harry suddenly felt his face grow hot. “I... I wouldn’t know, I suppose...”

Louis furrowed his brow. “What?” Then, after a pause, “Oh.”

He broke the gaze, unable to take the way Louis was looking at him, but he could still feel the weight of his stare even as he fussed with the holly on the mantel.

“You mean...you’ve never...”

“No,” Harry said, gritting his teeth. “I’ve never.”

“Oh.”

Harry heard Louis’ feet shuffle, as if he were shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Oh,” he said a third time, and this time, it set something off inside him.

“Honestly Louis, why do you sound so surprised?”

He looked a bit taken aback when he whirled in on him, as if he were at a complete loss at how to react. Finally, he dug his hands in his pockets.

“Dunno, I... I reckon I just assumed... Nic-”

“Nick!” The laugh escaped his lips before he could contain it, but then his brain caught up to his vocal chords, and Harry scrambled to recover. “Sorry, but... well, I can’t believe you thought...”

“I wouldn’t have put it past him to try something after all that time you spent with each other,” Louis said in a slightly testy tone.

Harry chuckled again. “Well... he didn’t.”

For a moment, he thought he saw something that looked vaguely like relief flicker in Louis’ eyes, but he couldn’t be quite sure, and then he wondered why he would even look for it in the first place. They were just friends. Right?

Shrugging the thought away, Harry decided to turn the tables on him. “What about you, then?”

Louis had gone back to one of the boxes, this time filling his arms with gingerbread men, who were wriggling in his grasp, as though attempting to make a daring getaway.

“Oi, settle down, will you?” he barked at them, then, without looking at Harry, he said breezily, “What about me?”

He wasn’t going to make this easy, Harry realized. Not that he should have been surprised.

“Have you ever...”

Louis looked back at Harry and grinned, as if challenging him to say the words out loud. He was actually enjoying this, the prat.

“Kissed someone.”

Louis set the gingerbread men down on the floor just in front of the fireplace, lining them up on the mantel one at a time, still avoiding Harry’s question.

“I take it by your silence that you’d rather not answer?”

Louis laughed softly then looked at Harry, his unabashed stare unnerving him in an unexpected way.

“Harry, you’re with me every minute of every day. What do you think?”

“Not every minute!” he said. “Louis, I’m asking you a simple question, and as usual, you’re avoiding-”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Avoiding?”

Oh God, why did Louis have to provoke him so? Now he’d gone and said something that didn’t make any sense at all.

“Oh, never mind...”

Harry wished he would stop staring at him like that. Hadn’t Mrs. Tomlinson ever taught him that it was rude to stare? Finally, he took his eyes away, though only for a second, because he looked up at Harry again moments later and gave him a sheepish smile.

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” he said. “There, are you happy?”

The words took Harry completely by surprise, and he could only look up at him, blinking stupidly in shock.

“W-What?”

A furious streak of crimson spread across his cheeks and he let out a sort of incredulous laugh. “If you think I’m going to say that again, you’re mental--and I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

Before Harry could help it, he smiled. It seemed to put Louis at ease as well, because soon he broke into a tentative smile as well.

“Well, it doesn’t exactly do wonders for a man’s ego to say it, you know.”

“Oh Louis, there’s no shame in it.”

He snorted. “If you say so,” he muttered. “What made you think that, anyway?”

“What?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “That I’d kissed someone.”

“Oh, well...”

Why had Harry thought that? There hadn’t been any explicit signs, come to think of it. Louis was right, they did spend so much time together--even more so this year--yet, why had he had that curious thought that kept creeping back even when he’d tried to shove it out of the way?

Harry went to one of the boxes and drew out some tinsel. After a while, he heard Louis moving about as well, looking for more ornaments for the tree. After what seemed like an eternity of tense silence between them, Louis finally said something.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wonder...”

He trailed off. Harry turned around to look at him.

“Er... never mind.”

“What?”

“I just wondered if... you ever thought about what it would be like.”

He was mumbling so much that Harry wondered if he heard him correctly. But his heart was racing at the mere possibility.

“What it...”

“... would be like.” He looked at Harry tentatively. “You know, kissing someone.”

Harry felt his vocal chords tangle. “I...”

Louis was staring intently at Harry, making him feel as if he were under a microscope.

“Sorry,” he said suddenly, starting to turn away, “that was probably a stupid question-”

“Sometimes.”

Louis blinked back at him. Harry wanted the floor to open and swallow him up.

“Wow,” he said. “Wow, I wasn’t sure what answer to expect from you on that one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry said, not meaning to sound quite so shrill.

“Nothing, just...” Louis looked to be thinking hard to find the right words. Harry realized he was probably staring at him a little too accusingly. “Well, I thought maybe you’d think it would be impractical to get caught up in such things. You know... that it might get in the way of school and everything...”

Now Harry was really offended.

“I’m not made of books, you know!”

“I know!” Louis said quickly, clearly aware that he’d said the wrong thing. “I didn’t mean-”

“Believe it or not, Louis, I am capable of such impractical feelings.”

Louis smiled then, catching him completely off-guard. He eyed Louis with suspicion, but he seemed genuinely sorry, then muttered, “That’s because you haven’t the emotional range of a teaspoon.”

Harry felt his mouth betray him with a smile. “I suppose we’ll find out what it’s like sooner or later,” he said.

Louis was still staring at Harry. He could feel it.

“Find what out?”

Harry walked over to stand beside him, picking out the tinsel he’d flung so carelessly on the tree, and rearranged it to look nicer.

“Kissing,” he said. Harry looked up at him, feeling his stomach clench when he caught the intensity of Louis stare firsthand. “What it’s like to kiss someone.”

“Oh,” he said, laughing softly. “Right.”

Harry went back for more tinsel, feeling Louis’ follow him closely behind. But he wasn’t prepared at all for the jolt of electricity when they both reached into the box at the same time, their hands brushing for the briefest of moments before they pulled them away a fraction of a second later.

Harry’s heart hammered in his ears. He was quite sure Louis could hear his breathing.

“Ok, don’t laugh...”

Harry blinked back at Louis, his throat tightening. To his recollection, no good ever came out of a sentence that began with those words.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Harry questioned.

Was Louis... blushing?

“Well,” Louis stammered, “I’d like to think that you would... er, that is...”

“What?”

Louis’ ears were glowing, blending almost seamlessly with his hair. Harry held his breath.

“We’re friends, right?”

Harry wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but that question was certainly not it. He looked back at Louis in bewilderment, wondering why he would ever ask such a question, but even more so, why it would bother him so much.

“Of course we are,” he said. “Why-”

But Louis wasn’t looking at him anymore. Instead he had leaned back at an angle, as if to peer out of the doorway.

“I was just thinking...” 

“Yes?”

Harry’s stomach was clenching painfully, though he hadn’t a clue why. Louis seemed to be working up the nerve to ask him something, but the words weren’t coming easy for him.

Finally, he blurted out, “So, how about it?”

Harry stared at him. “Could you maybe try it in English this time, Lou?”

He sighed, obviously frustrated with himself. “All right, seeing as how neither of us have... you know, kissed someone yet, and... both of us would like to know what it’s like...”

Oh God. Oh God, he wasn’t actually saying...

“It’s the perfect way to go about it, don’t you think?”

He was saying it.

“I mean, we’re friends...”

Harry had suddenly developed an intense hatred for the word friends.

“... and there’s no pressure, and there’s none of those... you know, impractical feelings to get in the way.”

The last few words sounded more like a question than a statement. Or perhaps Harry had only imagined it to be the case.

Hope it to be the case.

“Say something, will you?”

“I...”

Louis cringed. “You hate the idea.” He brought a hand up to the back of his neck and began to rub at it. “What the bloody hell was I thinking, anyway-”

“Sure.”

Louis stopped in mid-motion before he could turn away from Harry completely. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he returned his eyes to Harry’s.

“What did you just say?”

That was a good question. Panic was welling up inside Harry as the realization set in that he had just said the first thing that came into his head.

“Well... why not?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, as though trying to draw reassurance from him, “why not?”

“I mean... it’d be between friends.”

Yes. Yes, that was it, that was it exactly. No need to panic at all.

“Right. Between friends.”

“Right.”

Harry’s heart hammered away against his ribcage. Maybe he hadn’t thought this through enough after all. He was coming closer, he was coming closer, and... Oh God, his eyelashes were brushing against his...

He felt, rather than saw him smile.

“What?” he said, feeling Louis pull away slightly.

“You’ve got dust on your nose.”

“Dust?”

He slid a finger down the bridge of Harry’s nose, then blew off the glitter he’d gathered from the tip of his finger. “From the tinsel.” He smiled.

“Oh-”

Louis’ mouth was on Harry’s before he could finish the half-sentence, pressing gently as if asking for permission. He granted it.

And then Harry’s instincts took over.

Louis tasted of the spiced cider he’d had earlier that evening, sweet cinnamon and nutmeg. He tasted exactly the way Harry thought he would, though he didn’t know that he’d known it in the first place. Harry could feel Louis smile against his mouth again, feel him lift his hand up to his cheek to cup it, and just when he felt the slight flutter of his tongue sliding against his, until a noise coming from the T.V. jolted them apart.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Frosty the Snowman yelped. The annual Christmas programs were airing on the T.V. all day. The volume was turned up so high, but Harry and Louis weren’t even aware it was on.

When Harry’s heart finally slid out of his throat, he managed a laugh. He looked up and saw that Louis was laughing too, and soon their laughter faded, replaced once again by awkward silence. Harry smiled at him.

“Reckon we’re just about done here,” Louis said softly. Then, as though wanting to clarify himself, he said, “With the decorating, I mean.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, I think we’ve hung about as much tinsel as this room can take.”

Louis smiled just then, and Harry felt as though his heart would burst through his ribs at any moment.

“We should probably head outside.”

“Right...”

“Harry-”

“Louis-”

Louis let out another nervous laugh. “That was...”

Harry held his breath. Louis flashed a smile, then finished the sentence.

“... brilliant.”

Harry stared back at him, feeling his mouth trying to form words that just couldn’t seem to make their way out.

Louis smiled again and began to walk out, stopping at the door and turning around one last time to look at him. “You coming?”

Finally, he managed to find his voice.

“Right behind you.”


End file.
